No One Wins a War.

The man who influenced me to become an artist was my Uncle Jake. He could draw anything and loved to draw for my entertainment. He was a town hero after he foiled a service station armed robbery by sticking the handle of a wrench into the back of the robber while telling him he would shoot if he didn’t drop his gun. He was also a WWII vet like most of the dads whose children I grew up with. After the War he became the town drunk.

Uncle Jake was a Seabee. His first job was to help build the Alaskan Highway in anticipation of a possible Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands. He was among the crews that helped clean up the beaches after D-Day. It was during that period that he received his “Dear John” letter from Eunice. He was never the same afterwards and over time descended into a haze of alcoholism before I was born.

I grew up and came of age during the post WWII period. On nearly every corner of town was a WWII vet and most had experienced horrific combat. I’ve held nearly every form of Nazi memorabilia one can name from helmets, lugars, grenades, Iron Crosses and more which had been brought back. The primary lesson I learned from those vets, when they would talk about it, was that no one wins a war. They survive it with both physical and mental scars.

Uncle Jake didn’t survive his service to the nation. He came back physically unscathed but still deeply wounded. Each war has its name for it whether it be PTSD, combat fatigue, shell shock, Soldier’s Heart (Civil War), ad infinitum. No matter the name, the consequences have been the same for millennia.

My hero artist uncle died alone of alcoholism at the age of 45.

In memoriam on Memorial Day.